


I Know Just What the Feeling Is

by a_hand_outstretched



Category: Succession (TV 2018)
Genre: Drug Abuse, F/M, Kendall is MIA, M/M, Pre-Canon, Pretty sad, Rava is Tired, Stewy is Having A Decent Saturday, coke-on-the-kids-ipads era for Kendall and Rava's marriage, kenstew is somewhat ambiguous here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-12 07:08:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29505978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_hand_outstretched/pseuds/a_hand_outstretched
Summary: He’ll beg and promise and be so sweet and sad and irresistible to her and he’ll go off to treatment and therapy and it’ll be very good for a few weeks or months or years. And the whole time — until it all happens again — she’ll be morphing into something unrecognizable to herself, stretched and drained by the energy expended keeping a broken person whole through sheer force of will, holding the atoms of her family unit together just the way they should be.
Relationships: Kendall Roy/Rava Roy, Stewy Hosseini & Rava Roy, Stewy Hosseini/Kendall Roy
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21





	I Know Just What the Feeling Is

_I will love you like there's razors in it_  
_And she'll love you like a radiant flame_  
_There's never really any safety in it_  
_Please, do it again_

Rava assesses her body in the full-length mirror. 

She went to a clinic once, during some misguided self-improvement fervor that entwined itself with a bout of postpartum depression. One nurse traced the stretch marks on her abdomen with a felt tip marker. Another ran a cold gloved finger over the thin lines around her eyes. They praised her for coming in soon enough, before the death knell of her mid-thirties. They gave her a rubric outlining her flaws and how they would fix her for a price even she could recognize as obscene. The receptionist made a cheeky comment, offering to book her appointments before her husband’s birthday. But the experience hadn’t been truly humiliating until the car ride home, when, alone in the backseat, something shattered in her. She ripped the rubric and the glossy pamphlets into tiny shreds and let them fall to the bottom of her purse. She felt like she had just woken up from a nightmare. When had she become the kind of woman who bought into the idea that a 15% perkier ass would fix her life? 

She pinches the extra flesh on her bicep. She feels similarly, today. Like she doesn’t recognize herself or her life, all of a sudden. What kind of woman loses her husband? Not to divorce, or death. Literally _lost._ Like a dog that slipped his leash. 

He has always been attentive enough to her that it bordered on smothering. She doesn’t doubt his love for her in that sense. And she’s read every self-help book, every help-the-addict-you-love book, every advice column about toxic families-in-law, probably put her therapist’s kids through Harvard. But it wasn’t enough. Somehow she missed how far they were down the familiar, slippery slope of bad habits and paranoia. And now what? Poof. Gone. 

He’s not technically lost anymore, she reminds herself. She knows where he is now, or at least where he was a few hours ago. After getting radio silence from the family for days (except for Roman, out in LA, who told her he’d “make some calls,” whatever that fucking means) and exchanging fruitless emails and texts with the panicked-yet-cagey assistant, she had tracked his phone. He was in the same place all night, before he either turned off location data or let the battery die around 4am. In her initial relief of having some information, she had scribbled down the address on a piece of paper, frustrated it was only approximate, missing a unit number for what looked like a large residential building. Only upon reading it a second time did she realize she recognized it. 

She squeezes the water out of her hair with the towel and steps away from the mirror. It’s not the first time he’s pulled the disappearing act, but the last time was years ago, before the kids. She pulls on a robe. She puts moisturizer on her face, then makeup. 

It’s a Saturday, and she always feels guilty leaving the kids with the nanny on the weekends. But she shouldn’t put it off any longer. 

She braces herself and knocks on the door. It swings open before her hand can drop back to her side. 

Stewy doesn’t look surprised to see her — of course he doesn’t, she reminds herself, the concierge already called him. He’s the picture of calm, weekend casual — relaxed, but not rumpled, bare feet, a sweater and jeans, less hair gel than usual. She wishes for a moment she could have gotten the jump on him, somehow. 

“Rava. Hello.” 

“I know he’s here,” she says. 

“He was. He left,” he says, simply. She makes a skeptical face. He opens the door wide and moves to the side. “Search the place, if you want. Roman’s already on my ass for enabling him, so no need to get into the whole lecture.” He waves his hand in dismissal — Kendall’s sobriety, or lack thereof, was never a topic Stewy had much patience for. 

She walks through the spacious apartment for the hell of it, because the only thing waiting for her at home is more waiting. She scans each room for traces of her husband that she knows she won’t find. Stewy’s home is pristine in the way only a bachelor with full-time household staff’s home can be, not a speck of dust illuminated by the dreary morning light coming through the floor to ceiling windows. He follows, hanging back a few paces, looking mildly amused by the process. 

“He told me you kicked him out,” he offers, when she lets out a sharp sigh in yet another empty room.

“You didn’t fall for that, did you?” she asks. 

Stewy shrugs. “Not really. I didn’t know he was actually MIA, though.”

Rava looks back at him, unamused. No chance in hell he would have called her, or Roman, or anyone. Not if Kendall asked him not to. But she isn’t up for rehashing old arguments today.

“And you don’t know where he went?” 

Another shrug. “Nope. I told him to go home, obviously.” 

She stops in the doorway to his bedroom. She looks at the neatly made bed. A glass of water sits on a window sill nearby, notably out of place.

“You know he’ll be back begging forgiveness by the end of the week, right?” 

He’s right. Of course, he’s right. Like a runaway dog come home. He’ll beg and promise and be so sweet and sad and irresistible to her and he’ll go off to treatment and therapy and it’ll be very good for a few weeks or months or years. And the whole time — until it all happens again — she’ll be morphing into something unrecognizable to herself, stretched and drained by the energy expended keeping a broken person whole through sheer force of will, holding the atoms of her family unit together just the way they should be. 

“Maybe he shouldn’t. I can’t — I’m not doing this again.” 

Stewy laughs without opening his mouth, the noise caught in his throat. He cocks his head to the side. “Yeah, right. You don’t mean that.” 

If he’s trying to be comforting, he’s failing. But, once again, he’s not wrong, right? He would know, wouldn’t he? They’ll do it over and over and over and over, neither of them capable of getting off the merry-go-round. Unless the whole thing comes to a screeching halt. A solution dawns on her, almost as stupid as getting Botox at 32. 

She wipes her eyes. Stewy makes a pitying noise and puts an arm around her shoulders. There's the sharp smell of freshly applied cologne. She shrugs him off. She shoves him back against the doorframe, puts her hands on his chest. She kisses him. 

He turns his head away. He looks at her earnestly, or at least with the appearance of earnestness, those big round eyes. “Rava. He’s never fucked around on you.” 

“I thought being an honest slimeball was your whole gimmick,” she says. 

“Why would I lie? He’s been fucking obsessed with you since we were twenty-two. You know that.” She hates him right now, his petty little jealousies wrapped in condescension — he’ll always know him better, always know what’s best. As if he’s too good for her. As if he’s never tried to fuck her before. She digs her nails into his chest and tries to kiss him again. “I’m his friend,” he says, firmly. 

“The kind of friend who lets him relapse in your living room.” Rava scoffs. “You’d be doing us both a favor.” 

He pushes her away. His voice goes cold. “Wouldn’t you rather he did it with me? Hmm? At least I know how to handle him when he gets so tired of playing family man he starts looking for a needle to stick in his arm.”

“Oh, _fuck_ you, Stewy.” Her voice cracks because she’s crying in earnest now. Because despite all the evidence to the contrary, all those books and counseling sessions, it _is_ her fault, isn’t it? At least in part? The pain is acute, accompanied by an adrenaline rush, as though he actually physically hurt her. She stomps away from him and heads down the hallway toward the door. 

“Rava, I didn’t mean — look, we both know he can’t help it. I fucking worry about him too, that’s why I let him stay.”

She wants to scream at him. She never fucking asked to be The Wife, the shrill, controlling bitch, but if the shoe is forced on her foot... She grips the doorknob, staring at her knuckles instead of him, burning with rage. “Oh, so generous of you. As if you’ve ever — in your entire fucking life — had any priority beyond your own self-interest.”

He doesn’t respond and she snaps her head around to glare at him. He’s schooled his face into a blank mask. “Calm down, alright?” he says, his tone neutral. “I’ll text you if he turns up again.” 

“Don’t bother.”

Small mercy that she asked the driver to wait out front, because it’s pouring rain when she leaves the building. She has no umbrella or jacket and gets soaked through in the short time it takes to reach the car. Her clothes stick to her skin and the leather seats. Bone-deep embarrassment washes over her. She wipes at her face with her hands, makeup a mess from tears and the rain. She wants to disintegrate. 

“Ma’am?” Ahmet, the driver, asks, and when she moves her hands she sees the box of Kleenex extended toward her. She mumbles her thanks and takes it, genuinely grateful until he continues talking. “Mr. Roy called a few minutes ago. He wants to know what time you’ll be home this afternoon.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Title/lyrics from The National.


End file.
